Thoreau’s Illustrated Atlas, 1849-1860, part 1

On August 11, 1852, Thoreau records in his Journal: “Alcott says I should survey Concord and put down every house exactly as it stands with the name.”In fact, Alcott kept talking abouttheproposed atlas and went so far as to suggest in his nowfamousSuperintendent of Schools Report of 1860 and 1861, that Thoreau should makean illustrated Atlas for use in thecommunityand the schools. Unfortunately, Thoreau died before he couldaccomplishthis, but his surveys and FieldNotesbookhave been kept together in the Library and have often been used by people to identify ownershipof Concord land. Moss

The earliest map in the collection of the Concord Free Public Library is A Plan of the Town of Lincoln in the County of Middlesex from Survey Made in 1830 by John G. Hale Fayette Street Boston [copy; n.d.]

If Thoreau had this map with him in 1846 during his stay at Walden Pond he may have gotten ideas about how a similar map might be created for Concord.

Several of Thoreau’s later land surveys can be located using information on Hale’s 1830 map.

Thoreau’s first map is his Plan of Concord River from East Sudbury & Billerica Mills, 22.15 Miles, to be used on a trial in the S.J. Court, Sudbury & East Sudbury Meadow Corporation vs. Middlesex Canal, Taken by agreement of Parties, By L. Baldwin, Civil Engineer. Surveyed & Drawn by B.F. Perham. May 1834 [1859/1860] (rolled survey)

The third map was A Plan of the Public Lands in the State of Maine Surveyed under Instructions from the Commissioners & Agents of the State of Massachusetts and Maine…, Boston, 1835 [one section (that including Mount Katahdin) of a multi-sectional map]

This map could have been used by Thoreau to plan his three trips to the backwoods of Maine in 1846, 1853 and 1857.

3. R. W. Emerson’s Woodlot and meadow by Walden Pond (that part contained within the Lincoln bounds) the woodlot being a part of what was known in 1746 as Samuel Heywood’s pasture “and deeded by his son as such to his son Jonathan Taunier (?)” Surveyed March 1850 with unusual accuracy.